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ADDRESS 



COMMEMORATION OF THE INAUGURATION OF 

GEOKGE WASHINGTON 

AS 

FIEST PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 

DELIVERED BEFORE THE 

TWO HOUSES OF CONGEESS 

December 11, 1889 



BY 



MELVILLE WESTON FULLER, LL.D. 

CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE UNITED STATES 



NEW YOEK AND ALBAXY * 

BANKS AND BROTHERS, LAW PUBLISHERS 
1S90 



ADDRESS 



COMMEMORATION OF THE INAUGURATION OF 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 



FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 

DELIVERED BEFORE THE 

TWO HOUSES OF CONGRESS 

December 11, 1889 



MELVILLE WESTON FULLER, LL.D. 

CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE UNITED STATES 



NEW YORK AND ALBANY 
BANKS AND BROTHERS, LAW PUBLISHERS 

1890 






r/j/5 IS part of the Appendix to Volume 
132, United States Reports. Three Him- 
dred Copies are printed in tins form. 

TIjis Copy is No. y<^ 



ADDKESS. 



Mr. President, Mr. Speaker, and gentlemen of the Senate and 
House of liepresentatives : By tlie terms of that section of the 
act of Congress' under which we have assembled in further com- 
memoration of the historic event of the inauguration of the first 
President of the United States, George Washington, the 30th of 
April, A.D. 1889, was declared a national holiday, and in the noble 
city where that event took place its centennial anniversary has 
been celebrated with a magnificence of speech and song, of mul- 
titudinous assembly, and of naval, military and civic display, 
accompanied by every manifestation of deep love of country, of 
profound devotion to its institutions and of intense appreciation 
of the virtues and services of that illustrious man, whose assuni})- 
tion of the Chief Magistracy gave the assurance of the successful 
setting in motion of the new Government. 

By the sundry civil appropriation bill of March 2, 1889, it was enacted as follows : " Sec. 4. 
That in order that the centennial anniversary of the inauguration of the first President of the 
United States, George Washington, may be duly commemorated, Tuesday, the thirtieth day 
of April, anno Domini eighteen hundred and eighty-nine, is hereby declared to be a national 
holiday throughout the United States. And in further commemoration of this historic event, 
the two Houses of Congress shall assemble in the Hall of the House of Representatives on the 
second Wednesday of December, anno Domini eighteen hundred and eighty-nine, when suit- 
able ceremonies shall be had under the direction of a joint committee composed of five 
Senators and five Representatives, members of the Fifty-first Congress, who shall be appointed 
by the presiding officers of the respective Houses. And said joint committee shall have 
power to sit during the recess of Congress ; and it shall be its duty to make arrangements for 
the celebration in the Hall of the House of Representatives on the second Wednesday of 
December next, and may invite to be present thereat such officers of the United States and 
of the respective States of the Union, and (through the Secretary of State) representatives 
of foreign governments. The committee shall invite the Chief Justice of the United States to 
deliver a suitable address on the occasion. And for the purpose of defraying the expenses 
of said joint committee and of carrying out the arrangements which it may make, three 
thousand dollars, or so much thereof as may be necessary." 25 Stat. 980, c. 411, § 4. 

This joint committee, as organized, consisted of Mn. Hiscock of New York, Mr. Sherman 
of Ohio, Mr. Hoar of Alassachusetts, Mr. Voorhees of Indiana and Mr. Eustis of Louisi- 
ana, on the part of the Senate; and of Mr. Bayne of Pennsylvania, Mr. Hitt of Illinois, Mr. 
Carter of Montana, Mr. Culberson of Texas and Mr. Cummings of New York on the part 
of the House of Representatives. It agreed upon and issued the following as the order of 
arrangements at the Capitol. 



708 APPENDIX. 

Nothing on the occasion of that celebration coukl be more full 
of encouragement and hope than the testimony so overwhelmingly 
given that Washington still remained first in the hearts of his 
countrymen, and that the example afforded by his career was still 
cherished as furnishing that guide of public conduct which had 
kept and would keep the nation upon the path of glory for itself 
and of happiness for its people. 

The majestic story of that life — whether told in the pages of 
Marshall or Sparks, of Irving or Bancroft, or through the elo- 
quent utterances of Ames or Webster, or Everett or Winthrop, 
or the matchless poetry of Lowell or the verse of Byron — never 
grows old. 

We love to hear again what the great Frederick and Napoleon, 
what Erskine and Fox and Brougham and Talleyrand and Fontanes 
and Guizot said of him, and how crape enshrouded the standards 
of France, and the flags upon the victorious ships of England fell 
fluttering to half-nuist at the tidings of his death. 

The passage of the century has not in the slightest degree im- 
paired the irresistible charm ; and whatever doubts or fears assail 
us in the turmoil of our impetuous national life, that story comes 
to console and to strengthen, like the shadow of a great rock in a 
weary land. 

Washington had become first in war, not so much by reason of 
victories over the enemy, though he had won such, or of success 



The Capitol will be closed on the morning of the 11 th to all except the members and officerB 
of Congress; invited guests will be admitted by tii^licts. 

At 11 o'clock the east door leading to the Uotunda will be opened to those holding tickets of 
admission to the floor of the House and its galleries. 

The floor of the House of Representatives will be opened for the admission of Senators and 
RepresentativoH, and to those having tickets of admission thereto, who will be conducted to 
the seats assigned to them. 

The President and cx-I'residents of the I'nited States will be seated in front and on the 
right of the Presiding Officer. 

The Justices of the Supreme Court will occupy seats next to the President, in front .and on 
the right of the Presiding Officer. 

The Cabinet Officers, the Hon. George Bancroft, the General of the Army (retiretl), the 
Admiral of the Navy, the Major-General commanding the Army and the otUcers of the Army 
and Xavy who, by name, have received the thanks of Congress, will occupy seats directly in 
rear of the President and Supreme Court. 

The Chief .Tiistice and Jud^'es of the Court of Claims and the Chief Justice and Associate 
Justices of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia will occupy seats directly in rear 
of the Cabinet. 

The Diplomatic Corps will occupy seats in front and on the left of the Presiding Officer. 

International American Congress and Marine Conference will occupy seats in rear of the 
Diplomatic Corps. Cards of admission will be delivered to the Secretary of State. 

Ex-Vice-Presidents and Senators will occupy seats in rear of the Judiciary. 

Representatives will occupy seats behind the Senators and the representatives of foreign 
governments. 



ADDRESS. 709 

in strategy, though that had been his, as of the triumphs of a con- 
stancy which no reverse, no hardship, no incompetency, no treach- 
ery couki shako or overcome. 

And because the people comprehended the greatness of their 
leader and recognized in him an entire absence of personal ambi- 
tion, an absolute obedience to convictions of duty, an unaffected love 
of country, of themselves and of mankind, he had become first in 
the hearts of his countrymen. 

Because thus first, he was to become first in peace, by bringing 
to the charge of the practical working of the system he had par- 
ticipated in creating, on behalf of the people whose independence 
he had achieved, the same serene judgment, the same sagacity, the 
same patience, the same sense of duty, the same far-sighted com- 
prehension of the end to be attained, that had marked his career 
from its beginning. 

Erom the time he assumed command, he had given up all idea 
of accommodation, and believed that there was no middle ground 
between subjugation and complete independence, and that indepen- 
dence the independence of a nation. 

He had demanded national action in respect of the Army ; he 
had urged, but a few weeks, after Bunker Hill, the creation of a 
Federal court with jurisdiction coextensive Avith the colonies ; he 
had during the war repeatedly pressed home his deep conviction 
of the indispensability of a strong central government, and partic- 

Commissioners of the District, Governors of States and Territories and guests invited to 
the floor, will occupy seats behind tlie Representatives. 

The Executive Gallery will be reserved exclusively for the families of the Supreme Court, 
the families of the Cabinet and the invited guests of the President. 

The Diplomatic Gallery will be reserved exclusively for the families of the members of the 
Diplomatic Corps. Cards of admission will be delivered to the Secretary of State. 

The Reporters' Gallery will be reserved exclusively for the use of the reporters of the press. 
Tickets thereto will be delivered to the Press Committee. 

The Official Reporters of the Senate and of the House will occupy the Reporters' desk, in 
front of the Clerk's table. 

The Marine Band will occupy the south corridor, in rear of the Presiding Officer. 

The Diplomatic Corps, International American Congress and Marine Conference and other 
foreign guests will assemble in the Marble Room of the Senate; the Judiciary at the Supreme 
Court Room; the President, ex-Prtsidents, the Cabinet and the ex-Vice-Presidents will meet 
at the President's Room at 12.30 p.m. 

The house being in session, and notification to that effect having been given to-the Senate, 
the Vice-President and the Senate in a body, preceded by the President, ex-Presidents, es- 
Vice-Presidents, the Cabinet, the Judiciary, the Diplomatic Corps, International American 
Congress and Marine Conference will proceed to the Hall of the House of Representatives. 

The Vice-President will occupy the Speaker's chair, and will preside. 

The Speaker of the House will occupy a seat at the left of the Vice-President. 

The other officers of the Senate and of the House will occupy seats on the floor at the right 
»nd the left of the Presiding Officer. 

The Architect of the Capitol, the Sergeant-at-Arms of the Senate, the Sergeant-at-Arms and 
the Doorkeeper of the House are charged with the execution of these arraugemeuls. 



710 APPENDIX. 

ularly at its close, in his circular to the governors of the States 
and his farewell to his comrades. He had advocated the promo- 
tion of commercial intercourse -svith the rising world of the West, 
so that its people might be bound to those of the seaboard by a 
chain that could never be broken. Appreciating the vital impor- 
tance of territorial influences to the political life of a common- 
wealth, he had approved the cessions by the landed States, none 
more significant than that by his own, and had made the profound 
suggestion — which was acted on — of a line of conduct proper to 
be observed for the government of the citizens of America in their 
settlement of the western country which involved the assertion of 
the sovereign right of eminent domain. He had advised the com- 
missioners of Virginia and Maryland, in consultation at Mount 
Vernon in relation to the navigation of the Potomac, to recommend 
a uniform currency and a uniform system of commercial regula- 
tions, and this led to the calling of the conference of commis- 
sioners of the thirteen States. At the proper moment he had 
thrown his immense personal influence in favor of the convention 
and secured the ratification of the Constitution. 

It remained for him to crown his labors by demonstrating in 
their administration tlie value of the institutions Avhose establish- 
ment had been so long the object of his desire. 

'• It is already beyond doubt," wrote Count Moustier, in June, 
1789, " that in spite of the asserted beauty of the plan which has 
been adopted, it would have been necessary to renouoce its intro- 
duction if the same man who presided over its formation had not 
been placed at the head of the enterprise. The extreme confidence 



Accordingly, on the Ihh of Deceraber, at 1 o'clock p.m. the President of the United States, 
with the members of hifi Cabinet and the Chief Justice and Associate Justices of the Supreme 
Court, entered llie Hall of the House of Ueijresentatives and occupied the seats reserved for 
them in front and on the right of the rresiding Officer. 

Next the members of tlie Senate, following the Vice-President and their Secretary, preceded 
by their Sergeant-at-.Vrms, entered the Hall and took the seats reserved for them on the right 
and left of the main aisle. 

The V^ice-President occupied the Speaker's chair; the Speaker of the House sitting at liis 
left. 

The Major-General commanding the Army, the Dii)lomatic Corps, the International Amer- 
ican Congress and Marine Conference, and the other persons designated in the order of exer- 
cise, were seated in accordance with the arrangements of the joint committee. 

The Vice-l'resident .announced the object of the meeting, and, after jirayer by the Chaplain 
of the Senate, said " an oration will now be delivered by Melville W. Fuller, Chief Justice of 
the United States." 

At the close of the address a benediction was said by the Chaplain of the House of Represen- 
tatives. The President of the United States, with the members of his Cabinet, the Supreme 
Court, the Senate and the invited guests then retired from the Hall, while the Marine IJand 
played "Washington's Grand March." 



ADDRESS. 711 

in his patriotism, his integrity and his intelligence forms to-day- 
its principal support." 

There were obvious difficulties surrounding the first President. 
Eleven States had ratified, but the assent of some had been secured 
only after strenuous exertion, considerable delay, and upon close 
votes. 

So slowly did the new Government get under way that the first 
Wednesday of March, the day designated for the Senate and 
House to assemble, came and went, and it was not until the 1st of 
April that the House obtained a quorum, and not until the 6th 
that the electoral vote was counted in joint convention. 

An opposition so intense and bitter as that which had existed to 
the adoption of the Constitution could not readily die out, and the 
antagonisms which lay at its base were as old as human nature. 

Jealousies existed between the smaller and the larger, between 
the agricultural and the commercial States, and these were ren- 
dered the keener by the rivalries of personal ambition. 

Those who admired the theories of the French philosophical 
school and those who preferred the British model could not readily 
harmonize their differences, while the enthusiastic believers in the 
capacity of man for self-government denounced the more conserva- 
tive for doubting the extent of the reliance which could be placed 
upon it. 

The fear of arbitrary power took particular form in reference to 
the presidential office, which had been fashioned in view of the 
personal government of George the Third, rather than on the type 
of monarchy of the English system as it was in principle, and as 
it is in fact. 

And this fear was indulged notwithstanding the frequency of 
elections, since no restriction as to re-eligibility was imposed upon 
the incumbent. 

But no fear, no jealousy, could be entertained of him who had 
indignantly repelled the suggestion of the bestowal of kingly 
power ; who had unsheathed the sword with reluctance and laid it 
down with joy ; who had never sought official position, but accepted 
public office as a public trust, in deference to so unanimous a de- 
mand for his services as to convince him of their necessity ; whose 
patriotism embraced the whole country, the future grandeur of 
which his prescience foresaw. 

Nevertheless, while there could be no personal opposition to the 
unanimous choice of the people, and while his availability at the 
crisis was one of those providential blessings which, in other in- 



712 APPENDIX. 

stances, lie had so often insisted had been bestowed upon the 
nation, the fact remained that the situation was full of trial and 
danger, and demandod the application of the highest order of 
statesmanship. 

Nor are we left to conjecture Washington's feelings in this 
regard. 

Indeed, it may be said that at every period of his public life, 
though he possessed the talent for silence and did his work gener- 
ally with closed lips, yet it is always possible to gather from his 
remarkable letters the line of his thought upon current affairs, and 
his inmost hopes, fears and aspirations as to the public weal. 

Take for illustration that, in which, on the 9th of January, 1790, 
little more than eight months after his inauguration, he says : — 

" The estal)lishment of our new Government seemed to be the 
last great experiment for promoting human happiness by a reason- 
able compact in civil society. It was to be, in the first instance, 
in a considerable degree a government of accommodation as well 
as a government of laws. Much was to be done by prudence, much 
by conciliation, much by firmness. Few, who are not philosophical 
spectators, can realize the dilficult and delicate part which a man 
in my situation had to act. All see and most admire the glare 
which hovers round the external happiness of elevated office. To 
me there is nothing in it beyond the lustre which may be reflected 
from its connection with a power of ])romoting human felicity. 
In our progress towards political happiness my station is new, and, 
if I may use the expression, I walk on untrodden ground. There 
is scarcely an action the motive of which may not be subject to 
a double interpretation. There is scarcely any part of my con- 
duct which may not hereafter be drawn into precedent. If, after 
all my honorable and faithful endeavors to advance the felicity of 
my country and mankind, I may indulge a hope that my labors 
have not been altogether without success, it will be the only com- 
pensation I can receive in the closing scenes of life." 

Here he admits with a certain suppressed sadness that he real- 
izes that private life has ceased to exist for him, and that from his 
previous particii^ation in public affairs, the exalted character of 
the new office and the fact that he is the first to fill it, his every 
act and word thereafter may be referred to in guidance or control 
of others, and as bearing upon the nature of the (lovernment of 
which he was the head. It is borne in upon him that in this in- 
stance, in a greater degree than ever before, his conduct is to 
become an historical example. Questions of etic^uette, questions 



ADDRESS. 713 

pertaining to his daily life, unimportant in themselves, cease to be 
so under the new conditions, and this interruption of the domestic 
tenor of his way, to which he was of choice and ardently attached, 
finds no compensation in the gratification of a morbid hunger and 
thirst for applause, Avhether of the few or of the many. 

But in the consciousness of having contributed to the advance- 
ment of the felicity of his country and of mankind lies the true 
reward for these renewed labors. 

The promotion of human happiness Avas the key-note of the 
century within which Washington's life was comjirised. 

It was the century of Franklin and Turgot ; of Montesquieu and 
Voltaire and Rousseau; of Frederick the Great and Joseph the 
Second ; of Pitt and Fox and Burke and Grattan ; of Burns and 
Cowper and Gray ; of Goethe and Kant ; of Priestly and Hume 
and Adam Smith ; of Wesley and Whitefield and Howard, as well 
as of the long line of statesmen and soldiers, and voyagers over 
every sea; of poets and artists and essayists and encyclopaedists 
and romancers, which adorned it. 

It was the century of men like Condorcet, who, outlawed and 
condemned by a revolutionary tribunal, the outcome of popular 
excesses, calmly sat down, in hiding, to compose his work upon 
the progress of the human mind. 

It was a century instinct with the recognition of the human soul 
in every human being, and alive with aspirations for universal 
brotherhood. 

With this general longing for the elevation of mankind Washing- 
ton sympathized, and in expressing a hearty desire for the rooting 
out of slavery considered this not only essential to the perpetua- 
tion of the Union, but desirable on the score of human dignity. 
Nevertheless, with the calm reason in reference to government, of 
the race from which he sprang, he regarded the promotion of human 
happiness as to be best secured by a reasonable compact in civil 
society, and that established by the Federal Constitution as the 
last great experiment to that end. 

Washington and his colleagues were familiar with prior forms 
of government and their operation, and with the speculations of 
the writers upon that subject. They were conversant with the 
course of the Revolution of 1688, the then triumph of public 
opinion, and the literature of that period. They accepted the 
thesis of Locke that, as the true end of government is the mutual 
preservation of the lives, liberties and estates of the people, a gov- 
ernment which invades these rights is guilty of a breach of trust, 



714 APPENDIX. 

and can laAvfully be set aside ; and they were persuaded of the 
soundness of the views of Montesquieu, that the distribution of 
powers is necessary to political liberty, which can only exist when 
power is not abused, and in order that power may not be abused 
it must be so distributed that power shall check power. 

It is only necessary to consult the pages of the Federalist — 
that incomparable work on the principles of free government — to 
understand the acquaintance of American statesmen with preceding 
governmental systems, ancient and modern, and to comprehend 
that the Constitution was the result, not of a desire for novelty, 
but of the effort to gather the fruit of that growth Avhich, having 
its roots in the past, could yield in the present and give promise 
for the future. 

The colonists possessed practically a common nationality, and 
took by inheritance certain fundamental ideas upon the development 
of which their growth had proceeded. Self-government by local 
subdivisions, a legislative body of two houses, an executive head, 
a distinctive judiciary, constituted the governmental methods. 

Magna Charta, the Petition and Declaration of Right, the habeas 
corpus act, tlu; act of settlement, all the muniments of English 
liberty, were theirs, and the New England Confederation of 1G43, 
the schemes of union of 1754 and 1705, the revolutionary Con- 
gress, the Articles of Confederation, the colonial charters and 
constitutions furnished a vast treasury of experience iipon which 
they drew. 

Their work in relation to what had gone before Avas in triith but 
in maintenance of that continuity of which Hooker speaks: "We 
were then alive in our predecessors and they in their successors 
do live still." They did not seek to build upon the ruins of older 
institutions, but to develop from them a nobler, broader and more 
lasting structure, and in effecting this u})on so vast a scab' and 
under conditions so widely different from the past, the immortal 
instnunent was indeed the product of consummate statesmanshi}). 

Of the future greatness of the new nation Washington had no 
doubt. He saw, as if face to face, that continental domain Avhicli 
glimmered to others as through a glass darkly. 

The great West was no sealed l)ook to him, and no one knew 
better than he that no foreign power could long control the flow 
of the Father of Waters to the Gidf. 

He is said to have lacked imagination, and if the exhilaration of 
the poet, the mystic, or the seer is meant, tliis may be true. 

His mind was not given to indulgence in dreams of ideal com- 



ADDRESS. 715 

monwealtlis like the republic of Plato or of Cicero, the City of 
God of Augustine, or the Utopia of Sir Tliomas More, but it grasped 
the mighty fact of the empire of the future, and acted in obedience 
to the heavenly vision. 

But the question was, could that empire be realized and con- 
trolled by the people within its vast boundaries in the exercise 
of self-government ? 

Could the conception of a central government, operating directly 
upon citizens, who at the same time Avere subject to the jurisdiction 
of their several States, be carried into practical working operation 
so as to reconcile imperial sway with local independence ? 

Would a scheme Avork which Avas partly national and partly 
federal, and which aimed at unity as well as union ? 

And could the rule of the majority be subjected Avith binding 
force to such restraints through a system by representation, that 
of a republic rather than that of a pure democracy, that the 
violence of faction could not operate in the long run to defeat a 
common government by the many, throughout so immense an area? 

Could the restraints essential to the preservation of society, the 
equilibrium between progress and order, be so guarded as to alloAv 
of that sober second thought which Avould secure their observance, 
and thus the liberty and happiness of the people and the enduring 
progress of humanity ? 

AVhile the general genius of the GoA^ernment Avas thoroughly 
permeated Avith the ideas of freedom in obedience, yet time Avas 
needed to commend the form in Avhich it Avas for the future to 
exert itself. 

Hence administration in the first instance required accommo- 
dation as Avell as adherence to the letter, and prudence and concilia- 
tion as Avell as firmness. 

The Cabinet of the first President illustrates his sense of the 
nature of the exigency. 

All its members Avere friends and supporters of the Constitution, 
but possessed of Avidely different views as to the scope of its 
powers and the probabilities of its successful operation in the 
shape it then bore. 

BetAveen Jefferson and Hamilton there seemed to be a great gulf 
fixed, yet a common patriotism bridged it, and a common purpose 
enabled them for these critical years to act together. And this 
was rendered possible by the fact that the leadership of Wash- 
ington afforded a common ground upon AAdiich CA'ery lover of a 
united country could stand. And as the first four years Avere 



716 APPENDIX. 

Hearing their close, Hamilton and Jefferson severally urged Wash- 
ington to consent to remain at the helm for four years longer, that 
the Government might acquire additional firmness and strength 
before being subjected to the strain of the contention of parties. 

Undoubtedly Hamilton desired this also, because of nearer coin- 
cidence of thought on some questions involving serious difference 
of opinion, but both concurred in urging it upon the ground that 
the confidence of the whole Union was centred in Washington, 
and his being at the helm would be more than an answer to every 
argument which could be used to alarm and lead the people in 
any quarter into violence or secession. 

Appointments to the Supreme Bench involved less reason for 
accommodation, but equal prudence and sagacity. 

The great part which that tribunal was to play in the develop- 
ment of our institutions was yet to come, but the importance of 
that branch of the Government to which was committed the ulti- 
mate interpretation of the Constitution Avas appreciated by Wash- 
ington, who characterized it as the keystone of the ])olitical fabric. 

To the headship of the court, Washington called the pure and 
great-minded rray of New York, and associated with him John 
Kutledge of South Carolina, who, from the stamp-act Congress of 
17(j."), had borne a consi)icuous part in the history oi the country 
and of his State ; James Wilson of Pennsylvania, who, like Rut- 
ledge, had been prominent in the Continental Congress and in the 
Federal convention, a signer of the D(iclaration of Independence, 
and one of the most forcible, acute and learned debaters on behalf 
of the Constitution, as the records of the Federal and his State 
conventions show ; Cushing, chief-justice of Massachusetts, expe- 
rienced in judicial station, and the only person holding office 
under the Crown who adhered to his country in the Revolution ; 
Harrison of Maryland, Washington's well-known secretary ; Blair 
of Virginia, a jiulge of its court of appeals, and one of Washing- 
ton's fellow-members in the convention ; and in place of Rutledge 
and Harrison, who preferred the highest judicial positions in their 
own States, Thomas Johnson of ^laryland and James Iredell of 
North Carolina. 

It will be perceived that the distribution was made with tact, 
and the selections with consummate wisdom. 

The part the appointees had taken in the cause of the country, 
and especially in laying the foundations of the political edifice, 
their eminent qualifications and recognized integrity, commended 
the court to the confidence of the people, and gave assurance that 



ADDRESS. 717 

this great department would be so administered as to effectuate 
the purposes for which it had been created. 

As to appointments generally, he did not recognize the rule of 
party rewards for party work, although, when party opposition 
became clearly defined, he wrote Pickering that to " bring a man 
into any office of consequence knowingly, whose political tenets 
are adverse to the measures which the General Government is 
pursuing," would be, in his opinion, " a sort of political suicide." 
To integrity and capacity, as qualifications for high civil office, he 
added that of " marked eminence before the country, not only as 
the more likely to be serviceable, but because the public will more 
readily trust them." As in appointments, so in the conduct of 
affairs, prudence, conciliation and accommodation carried the 
experiment successfully along, while firmness in essentials was 
equally present, as when, at a later day, the suppression of the 
whiskey rebellion and the maintenance of neutrality in the war 
between France and England gave information at home that there 
existed a central Government strong enough to suppress domestic 
insurrection, and abroad, that a new and self-reliant power had 
been born into the family of nations. 

The course taken in all matters, whether great or small, Avas the 
result of careful consideration and the exercise of deliberate judg- 
ment as to the effect of what was done, or forborne to be done, 
upon the success of the newly constructed fabric. Thus, the 
regulation of official behavior was deemed a matter of such conse- 
quence, that Adams, Jay, Hamilton and Madison were consulted 
upon it, for although republican simplicity had been substituted 
for monarchy and titles, and was held inconsistent with concession 
of superiority by reason of occupancy of official station, yet the 
transition could not be violently made, and the people were, in any 
event, entitled to expect their agents to sustain with dignity the 
high positions to which they had been called. 

During the entire Presidency of Washington, upon the details 
of which it is impracticable here to dwell, time for solidification 
was the dominant thought. The infant giant could defend himself 
even in his cradle ; but to become the Colossus of Washington's 
hopes, the gristle must have opportunity to harden. 

After more than seven years of devotion to the interests com- 
mitted to his charge and intense Avatchfulness over the adjustment 
and working of the machinery of the new system, having deter- 
mined upon his own retirement, thereby practically assigning a 
limit to the period during which the office could with propriety be 



718 APPENDIX. 

occupied by his successors, still regarding the problem as not 
solved, and still anxiously desiring to contribute to the last to the 
welfare of the constant object of his veneration and love, he gives 
to his countrymen in the farewell of "an old and affectionate 
friend," the results of his observations and of his reflections on the 
operation of the great scheme he had assisted in creating and had 
so far commended to the people by his administration of its pro- 
visions. 

Punctilious as he was in official observances, and dear as his 
home and his own State were to him, this address was one that 
rose above home, and State, and official place, that brought him 
near, not sim])ly to the people to whom it was immediately directed, 
but to that great coming multitude whom no man could number, 
and towards which he felt the pathetic attachment of a noble and 
prophetic soul. And so he dates it, not from INIount Vernon nor 
from his official residence, but from the " United States." 

Hamilton, INIadison and Jay had, in the series of essays in 
advocacy of the Constitution, largely aided in bringing about its 
ratification, and displayed wonderful comprehensiveness of view, 
depth of wisdom and sagacity of reflection in their treatment of 
the topics involved. Throughout Washington's administration 
they had to the utmost assisted in the successful carrying on of 
the Government, in the Cabinet, in Congress, upon the bench, or 
in diplomatic station, and to them as tried and true friends and 
men of a statesmanship as broad as the country, Washington turned 
at one time and another for advice in the preparation of these 
closing Avords. 

Notwithstanding that innate modesty which had always induced 
a certain real diffidence in assuming station, he was conscious of 
his position as founder of the state ; he felt that every iitterance 
in this closing benediction would be cherished by coming genera- 
tions as disinterested advice, based on experience and knowledge 
and illuminated by the sincerest affection, and he invited the 
careful scrutiny of his friends that it might " be handed to the 
public in an honest, unatt'ected, simple garb." But the work was 
his own, as all his work was. The virtue went out of him, even 
when he used the hand of another. 

If we turn to this remarkable document and compare the line of 
conduct therein recommended with the course of events during the 
century — the advice given with the results of experience — we 
are amazed at the wonderful sagacity and precision with which it 
lays down the general principles through whose application the 



ADDRESS. 719 

safety and prosperity of the Republic have been secured. To 
clierish the public credit and promote religion, morality and edu- 
cation were obvious recommendations. Economy in public expense, 
vigorous exertion to discharge debt unavoidably occasioned, acqui- 
escence in necessary taxation, and candid construction of govern- 
mental action in the selection of its proper objects, were all parts 
of the first of these. The increase of net ordinary expenditures 
from three millions to two hundred and sixty-eight millions of 
dollars, and of net ordinary receipts from four and one-half to 
three hundred and eighty millions of dollars, renders the practice 
of economy, as contradistinguished from wastefulness, as com- 
mendable to-day as then, but it must be a judicious economy ; 
for, as Washington said, timely disbursements frequently prevent 
much larger. 

The extinction of the public debt at one time, and the marvellous 
reduction, within a quarter of a century of its creation, of a later 
public debt of more than twenty-five hundred millions of dollars, 
demonstrate practical adherence to the rule laid down. It is true 
that the great material prosperity which has attended our growth 
has enabled us to meet an enormous burden of taxation Avith com- 
parative ease, but it is nevertheless also true that the general 
judgment has never wavered upon the question of the sacred ob- 
servance of plighted faith ; and if at any moment the removal of 
the bars designed to imprison the powerful giant of a paper cur- 
rency seemed to imperil the preservation of the public honor, the 
sturdy common sense of the people has checked through their 
representatives the dangerous tendency before it has gone too 
far. 

Education was one of the two hooks (the other Avas local self- 
government) upon Avhich the continuance of republican govern- 
ment was considered as absolutely hanging. 

The action of the Continental Congress in respect to the western 
territory was next in importance to that on independence and 
union. Apart from its political significance we recall the familiar 
fact that one section out of every township was reserved under 
the ordinances of 17<S5 and 1787 for the maintenance of schools, 
because religion, morality and knowledge were considered essen- 
tial to good government and the happiness of mankind. The one 
section has been made two, and many millions of acres have been 
granted for the endowment of universities, of normal, scientific 
and mining schools, and institutions for the benefit of agriculture 
and the mechanic arts, including from three hundred and fifty to 



720 APPENDIX. 

four hundred and fifty thousand acres for educational and chari- 
table institutions, to each of the new States recently admitted,- by 
an act appropriately passed into law on the birthday of Wash- 
ington. A thousand universities, colleges and institutions of 
learning, twelve millions of children attending two hundred thou- 
sand public schools, with three hundred and sixty thousand teach- 
ers, at an expenditure of one hundred and twenty-five millions and 
with property worth two hundred millions, and sixty-two million 
dollars in private benefactions for education in the decade of the 
last census, testify that the importance of education is not under- 
estimated in a country whose institutions are dependent upon the 
intelligence of the people. 

Washington insists that national morality cannot prevail in 
exclusion of religious principle, though the influence of refined 
education on minds of a peculiar structure may have induced an 
opposite conclusion. 

History accords with this view. Plutarch said, "You may 
travel over the world and you may find cities without walls, with- 
out king, without mint, without theatre or gymnasium, but you 
will never find a city without God, without prayer, without oracle, 
without sacrifice ; " and the eighteen centuries since his day con- 
firm the truth of his words. 

" Take from me," said Bismarck, " my faith in a divine order 
which has destined this German nation for something good and 
great, and you take from me my fatherland.'' 

Washington declares that " the mere politician, equally witli the 
pious man, ought to respect and cherish religion and morality as 
the firmest j)rops of the duties of men and citizens.'' He did not 
mean that the value of trust and faitli has no relation to the 
reality of the objects of that trust and faith, nor that those to 
whom he referred should indulge in religious observances as mere 
mummeries to deceive, while smiling among themselves, as Cicero 
with his fellow-augurs, nor that faith should be betrayed by accom- 
modation to superstition, as in the action of the town clerk of 
Ephesus, but he demanded that they should recognize in fact the 
indispensability of these supports of political prosperity. 

And here again the answer of the century's watchman tells that 
the night is passing. 

Crime, drunkenness, pauperism have steadily decreased in pro- 
portion as population has increased, philanthropic agencies have 
multiplied, moral sensitiveness has become keener, and higher 
standards of personal and ofiicial conduct have come to be required, 



ADDRESS. 721 

while at the same time the statistics of religious progress exhibit 
wonderful and most gratifying results. 

Washington had never permitted his jiublic action to be itiflu- 
enced by personal affection or personal hostility, and in urging the 
avoidance of political connections or personal alliances with any 
portion of the foreign Avorld, he characteristically condemned 
indulgence in an inveterate antipathy towards particular nations 
and a passionate attachment for others, while observing good faith 
and justice towards all. No reason existed for becoming impli- 
cated in the ordinary vicissitudes of the politics of Europe, or the 
ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities. 
Intervention meant war, not arbitration ; the assumption of obli- 
gation meant force, not words. No held was to be opened here 
for foreign intrigues, and no necessity created here for standing 
armies and the domination of the civil by the military authority. 

So scrupulous was Washington's abstinence from the slightest 
appearance of interference, that, notwithstanding his tender friend- 
ship for La Fayette, he would not make official application for his 
release from Olmutz. So absolute was his conviction that this 
country must not become a make-weight in Europe's balances of 
power, that he sternly held it to neutrality under circumstances 
which would have rendered it impossible for any other man to do 
so. Such has been the policy unchangeably pursued, but it has 
not required the concealment of our sympathy Avith all who have 
wished to put American institutional ideas into practical operation, 
or our confidence in their ultimate prevalence. Nor has the rule 
prevented the Republic from the declaration that it should take 
its own course in case of the interference by other nations with 
the primary interests of America. 

In the lapse of years international relations have been constantly 
assuming larger importance with the growth of the country and 
the world and the increasing nearness of intercommunication. 
We are justified in claiming that the delicate and difficult function 
of government involved has been from the first discharged in so 
admirable a manner that the solution of the grave questions of 
the future may be awaited without anxiety. 

It is matter of congratulation that the first year of our second 
century witnesses the representatives of the three Americas en- 
gaged in the effort to increase the facilities of commercial inter- 
course, "■ consulting the natural course of things, diffusing and di- 
versifying by gentle means the streams of intercourse, but forcing 
nothing," success in which must knit closer the ties of fraternal 
vox., cxxxii — 40 



722 APPENDIX. 

friendsliip, and bring the peoples of the tAvo American continents 
into harmonious control of the hemisphere. 

The course of events has equally shown the profound v.dsdom 
of the propositions of the Farewell Address bearing directly on 
the form of government delineated in the Federal Constitution. 

First of these is the necessity of the preservation of the distri- 
bution of powers, and of resistance to any encroachment by one 
department upon another. 

The executive power was vested in the President, but he had a 
voting power in the right to veto, and the power of initiation as to 
treaties, which became binding with the advice and consent of the 
Senate. 

The interposition of the latter was also permitted by the requi- 
sition of assent in the confirmation of appointments, and it could 
sit in judgment on the President if articles of impeachment were 
presented. In some i)articulars, therefore, the two departments 
approached each other in the exercise of functions appropriate to 
each. 

This made it all the more important that there should hi' no in- 
vasion of the one by the other. No effort to diminish the execu- 
tive authority or to interfere with the exercise of its legitimate 
discretion has commanded the sup})ort of the public voice, and im- 
])f;ichnient has not been considered a proper resort to reconcile 
differences of judgment, however serious. 

The right to initiate and to pass laws having l)een lodged in Con- 
gress, the balance of power was actually there reposed, and th(^ 
danger of encroachment would naturally present itself from that 
quarter. 

And here the Federal judiciary was interposed as a coordinate 
department, with power to determine wlien the limitations of the 
fundamental law Avere transgressed. AN'ithout an exact precedent, 
tlie creation of a tribunal })ossessed of that power was the natural 
result of tl^e existence of a Avritten constitution ; for to leave to 
the instrumentalities bv which governmental power is exercised 
the determination of boundaries u[)on it, Avould dispense with 
them altogether. 

In England the executive and legislative powers are ])ractically 
vested in Parliament and exercised by the Cabinet, which amounts 
to a committee of the Commons, acting with the additional power 
which secret agreement on a given course imparts. The constitu- 
tion is what Parliament makes it, and the judicial tribunals only 
inter^jret and apply the action of that body, being necessarily des- 



ADDEESS. 723 

titute of the power to hold such action void by reference to any 
higher law than its own enactments. 

]S^ot so with us. Every act of Congress, every act of the state leg- 
islatures, every part of the constitution of any State, if repugnant 
to the Constitution of the United States, is void, and to be so 
treated. The Supreme Court by the decision of cases in which 
such acts or provisions are drawn in question, and in the exercise 
of judicial functions, renders the Constitution in reality as well as 
in name the supreme law of the land. 

Its judgments command the assent of Congress and the Execu- 
tive, the States and the people, alike, and it is this unique arbitra- 
ment that has challenged the admiration of the world. 

The court cannot be abolished by Congress, but the number of 
its judges may be increased, or diminished on the occurrence of 
vacancies, and so, while its jurisdiction cannot be impaired, the 
exercise of it may be curtailed. 

Nevertheless, no legislation to control it in any way has ever 
been approved by definite public opinion, and the tribunal remains 
in the complete discharge of the vital and important functions it 
was created to perform. 

Scrupulously abstaining from the decision of strictly political 
questions and from the j)erformance of other than judicial duties ; 
never grasping an nngranted ju.risdiction and never shrinking from 
the exercise of that conferred upon it, it commands the reverence 
of a law-abiding people. 

Again, "Washington urges not only that his countrymen shall 
steadily discountenance irregular opposition to the acknowledged 
authority of the Government, and resist with care the spirit 
of innovation upon its principles, but shall oppose any change 
in the system except by amendment in the mode provided, par- 
ticularly warning them, as fearful of objection to the pressure 
of the Government, that the energy of the scheme must not be 
impaired, as vigor is not only required to manage the common 
interests throughout so extensive a country, but is necessar}' to 
protect liberty itself. 

In no part of the Constitution was greater sagacity displayed 
than in the provision for its amendment. No State, without its 
consent, could be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate, but 
otherwise (with an exception now immaterial) the instrument 
might be amended upon the concurrence of two-thirds of both 
Houses, and the ratification of the legislatures or conventions of 
three-fourths of the several States, or through a Federal conven- 



724 APPENDIX. 

tion Avhen applied for by the legislatures of tAvo-thirds of the 
States, and upon like ratification. 

It was designed that the ultimate sovereignty thus reposed 
should not be called into play, except through this slow and de- 
liberate process, which would give time for mere hypothesis and 
opinion to exhaust themselves, and the conclusion reached to be 
the result of gravity of thought and judgment, and of the concur- 
rence of substantially every part of the country. 

The first ten amendments hardly come within the application of 
the principle, as they were in substance requested by many of the 
States at the time of ratification. In the Pennsylvania convention, 
James Wilson declared that the subject of a bill of rights was not 
mentioned in the constitutional convention until within three days 
of its adjournment, and even then no direct motion upon the sub- 
ject was offered ; and that such a bill was entirely unnecessary in a 
government having none but enumerated powers ; but Jefferson 
urged from Paris that a bill of rights was " what the people are 
entitled to against every government on earth, general or particu- 
lar," and that one ought to be added, " providing clearly and with- 
out the aid of sopliism, for freedom of religion, freedom of the 
press, protection against standing armies, restriction of monopo- 
lies, the eternal and unremitting force of the habeas corpus laws 
and trials by jury in all matters of fact triable by the laws of the 
land, and not by the laws of nations." This view prevailed, but in 
order that the affirmance of certain riglits might not disparage 
others or lead to implications in favor of the possession of other 
powers, it was added that the enumeration of certain rights should 
not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the peo- 
ple, and that the powers not delegated were reserved. 

Congress, in the preamble to these amendments, and Washington, 
in his inaugural, commend their adoption out of regard for the 
public harmony and a reverence for the characteristic rights of 
freemen. 

The eleventh inhibited the extension by construction, in the 
particular named, of the Federal judicial power, and the twelfth 
related to matters of detail in the election of President and 
Vice-President. Xo one of the twelve was in restraint of state 
action. 

Sixty years elapsed before the ratiiication of the thirteenth, 
fourteenth and fifteenth amendments. These definitively disposed 
of the subject of slavery, that Serbonian bog 'twixt the extreme 
views of the two schools of political thought dividing the country 



ADDRESS. 



t^ib 



— views, which, except for the existence of that institution, might 
never have been pushed to an extreme, but might have continued 
peacefully to operate in the production of a golden mean between 
the absorption of power by the central and its diffusion among the 
local governments. And by the fourteenth an additional guaranty 
was furnished against the arbitrary exercise by the States of the 
powers of government, unrestrained by the established principles 
of private rights and distributive justice. 

Undoubtedly the effect of these later amendments was to in- 
crease the power of Congress, but there was no revolutionary 
change. It is as true of the existing government, as it was of 
the proposed government, that it must stand or fall with the state 
governments. 

Added provisions for the protection of personal rights involved 
to that extent additional powers, but the essential elements of the 
structure remained unchanged. 

In other words, while certain obstructions to its working have 
been removed the clock-work has not been tlirown out of gear, but 
the pendulum continues to swing through its appointed arc and the 
vast machinery to move noiseless^ and easily to and fro, marking 
the orderly progress of a great people in the achievement of happi- 
ness by the exercise of self-government. 

But while direct alterations have been few, the fundamental law 
has been developed in the evolution of national growth, as Wash- 
ington, indeed, anticipated. " Time and habit," said he, '•' are at 
least as necessary to fix the true character of government as of 
other human institutions ; " and " experience is the surest standard 
by which to fix the real tendency of the existing constitution of a 
country.'"' 

In this he applies the language of Hume, and speaks in the spirit 
of the observation of Bacon, that "rightly is truth called the 
daughter of time, not of authority."' 

Time, habit, experience, legislation, usage may have assisted in 
expanding the Constitution in the quiet, imperceptible manner in 
which nature adapts itself to new conditions, though remaining 
still the same. 

Yet its chief growth is to be found in the interpretation of its 
provisions by the tribunal upon which that delicate and respon- 
sible duty was imposed. And in that view what •'a debt immense 
of endless gratitude " is owed to those luminous decisions of John 
^Marshall, which placed the principles of the Constitution upon an 
impregnable basis and rendered an experimental system permanent. 



72t) APPENDIX. 

Renowned and venerable name ! It was he who liberated the 
spirit which lived within the Constitution — the mind infused 
" througli every member of the mighty mass " — so that it might 
'^pervade, sustain and actuate the whole." 

The fact that the conclusions reached by the court and set forth 
by the persuasive and logical reasoning of the great Chief Justice 
did not at the moment move in the direction of public opinion, 
but finally met with the entire approval of the matured judgment 
of the people, furnishes an impressive illustration of the working 
of our system of government. 

Doubtless, in many instances, the Constitution has been sub- 
jected to strains which have tested its elasticity without breaking 
the texture, but the watchfulness of party has aided to keep the 
balance true, absolute infraction has been deprecated or denied, 
and a law-loving and law-abiding people has welcomed the rebound 
wliich restored the rigid outline and even tenor of its way. 

The departing statesman d\v(dls with insistence, on the grounds 
both of interest and sensibility, upon the paramount im})ortance 
of the Union and of that unity of government which ni;dies of 
those who live under it one people and one nation, and will, he 
hopes, induce all its citizens, whether by birth or choice, to glory 
in the name " American." 

Here, the ideal which influenced his (;onduct may be read be- 
tween the lines — the ideal of a powerful and harmonious people, 
possessed of freedom because capable of self-restraint, and working 
out the destinies of an ocean-bound republic, whose example should 
be a message of glad tidings to all the earth. 

And the realization of that ideal involved a patriotism not based 
upon the dictates of interest, but springing from devotit)n of the 
heart, and pride in the object of that devotion. 

What Washington desired, as Lodge's flue biography makes 
entirely clear, was, that the people should become saturated with 
the principles of national unity and love of country, should possess 
an "American character," shoukl never forget that they were 
" Americans." Hence he opposed education abroad, lest our youth 
might contract principles unfriendly to republican government ; 
and discouraged immigration, except of those who, by '-an inter- 
mixture with our people," could themselves, or their descendants, 
" get assimilated to our customs, measures and laws ; in a word, 
soon become one people." 

To be an American was to be part and parcel of American ideas, 
institutions, prosperity and progress. It was to be like-minded 



ADDRESS. 727 

with the patriotic leaders who have served the cause of their native 
or adopted kind, from Washington to Lincohi. It was to be con- 
vinced of the virtues of republican government as the bulwark 
of the true and genuine liberties of mankind, which would 
ultimately transmute suffering through ignorance into happiness 
through light. 

Who would not glory in the name American, when it carries 
with it such illustrative types as Washington, and Franklin, and 
Samuel Adams, and Jefferson, and such a type as Lincoln, whose 
very faults were American, as were the virtues of his sad and 
heroic soul ? 

As the lust for domination is in perpetual conflict with the long- 
ing to be free, so the tendency to concentration struggles perpet- 
ually with the tendency to diffuse. 

It is in the maintenance of the equilibrium that the largest 
liberty consistent with the greatest progress has been found. And 
this is as true between the States and the Federal Government as 
between the individual and the State. 

But while the play of the two forces is a natural one, the gravi- 
tation is to the centre, with human nature as it is. 

The passage of the century, with the vast material development 
of the country, has brought this strikingly home to us in the 
increased importance of the Federal Government in prestige and 
power, as compared Avith that of the state governments in the 
time of Washington. Position on the Supreme Bench or Cabinet 
place might still be declined for personal reasons, but not because 
of preference for the headship of a state government, or of a state 
tribunal, and no punctilio would cause the governor of to-day to 
hesitate upon a question of official etiquette when the President 
visits a state capital. 

Rapidity and ease of communication by railroad, telegraph and 
post; the handling of the vast income and expenditure of the 
Federal treasury, and the knitting together of the innumerable 
ties of family, social and business relations, have created a soli- 
darity which demands, in the regulation of commerce, the manage- 
ment of financial affairs and the like, the interposition of Federal 
authority. The National Banking system, the Interstate Com- 
merce Commission, the Agricultural Department, the Labor and 
Educational Bureaux, the National Board of Health, indicate the 
drift toward the exertion of the national will, a natural and per- 
haps inevitable result of that unity which formed the object 
of Washinsrton's desire. 



728 APPENDIX. 

But what he wished was solidarity without centralization in 
destruction of local regulation, for it must not be assumed that 
he did not realize the vital importance of the preservation of local 
self-government through the States. To realize its great destiny 
the country must oppose externally a consolidated front and con- 
tain within itself a single people only ; but popular government 
must be preserved, and the doubt was whether a common govern- 
ment of the popular form could embrace so large a sphere. 

Hence the earnestness with Avhich Washington invoked the 
spirit of essential unity through pride and affection to move upon 
the face of the waters. When the new political world had fairly 
taken form and substance other considerations would resume their 
due importance. He was profoundly disturbed by the appre- 
hension that different portions of the population might become, 
through contradictory interests, in effect rival peoples, and the 
Union be destroyed by the contention for mastery between them. 
His sagacious mind perceived the danger arising from the social 
and economic condition produced by an institution with which 
the framers of the Constitution had found themselves unable to 
deal, and he deprecated an appeal to the last reason of kings in 
preservation of one government over our whole domain. 

Yet that appeal was fortunately so long delayed that when it 
came the civil war determined the perpetuity and indissolubility 
of the Union, without the loss of distinct and individual existence 
or of the right of self-government by the States. 

This conflict demonstrated that no part of the country was des- 
titute of that old lighting spirit, which rouses at the invocation of 
force through arms, and which long years of prosperity could not 
weaken or destroy, and, at the same time, that gigantic armies 
drawn from the ranks of a citizen soldiery, however skilled they 
may become in the arts of war, on the cessation of hostilities at 
once resume the normal cultivation of the arts of peace. 

And from an apparent invasion of the carefully constructed 
scheme to secure popular government, popular government has 
obtained a wider scope and renewed power, and from an apparent 
industrial overthrow has come an unexampled industrial develop- 
ment. " Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong 
came forth sweetness." 

The waste of war is always rapidly replaced, and in its effect 
on institutions time may repair its injuries without weakening its 
benefits. 

Is it possible to conceive of a more searching test of the wisdom 



ADDRESS. 729 

and lasting quality of our form of government than that applied 
by the civil war ? Is it possible to conceive of a more convincing 
demonstration than the reconciliation which has followed the con- 
clusion of the struggle, and the complete reinstatement of the 
system in harmonious operation over the entire national domain ? 
No conquered provinces perpetuated personal animosities and by 
the fact of their existence, through despotic rule over part, changed 
the government over all. On the contrary, the States, vital parts 
of the system, and in whose annihilation the system perishes, 
resumed the relations temporarily suspended, and the continuance 
of local self-government on its accustomed course prevented the 
old connection from carrying with it the bitterness of enforced 
change. It was the triumph of the machinery that its practical 
working so speedily assumed its normal movement, substantially 
uninjured by the convulsion that had shaken it. 

And as the wheels within the wheels revolve, the aspiration finds 
a response in every heart : " Come from the four winds, O breath, 
and breathe upon these slain that they may live " — live with their 
reunited brethren, one in the hand of God. 

Finally, the country is warned against the baleful effects of the 
spirit of party as the worst enemy of governments of the popular 
form. 

Franklin wrote that all great affairs are carried on by parties, 
but that as soon as a party has gained its general point each mem- 
ber becomes intent upon his particular interest ; that few in public 
affairs act from a mere view of the good of their country, and fewer 
still with a view to the good of mankind. But these observations 
would, in the light of the history of our country, be regarded as 
too sweeping, although they suggest grounds for the objection of 
Washington to the domination of party spirit. 

Parties based on different opinions as to the principles on which 
the Government is to be conducted must necessarily exist. To 
them we look for that activity in the advocacy of opposing views ; 
that watchfulness over the assertion of authority; that keen de- 
bate as to the course most conducive to well-being ; essential to the 
successful growth of popular institutions. That voice of the people 
which, when duly given and properly ascertained, directs the action 
of the State is largely brought to declare itself through the instru- 
mentality of party. It is this which corrects that general apathy 
rightly regarded by De Tocqueville as a serious menace to popular 
government because conducive to its complete surrender to the 
domination of its agents if they will but relieve responsibility and 



730 APPENDIX. 

gratify desire. But if the spirit of party is so extreme that party 
itself becomes a despotism, or, if government itself becomes nothing 
but organized party, then the danger apprehended by Washington 
is upon us. 

With the increase of population and wealth and power; with 
the spoils of office dependent upon the elections ; with vast interests 
affected by legislation, as in the care and disposition of public 
property, the raising of public revenue, the grant or regulation of 
corporate powers and monopolistic combinations, the danger is that 
corruption, always insidious, always aggressive, and always danger- 
ous to popular government, Avill control party machinery to effect 
its ends, tempt public men into accepting favors at its hands by 
taking office purchased by its influence, and flourish in rank luxu- 
riance under the shelter of a system which confounds the honest 
and the patriotic with the cunning and the profligate. An intelligent 
public opinion ceases to exist when it cannot assert itself, and great 
measures and great principles are lost when elections degenerate 
into the mere registration of the decrees of selfishness and greed. 

Whenever party spirit becomes so intense as to compass such 
results it will have reached the height denounced by Washington, 
and will realize in the action it dictates the terrible definition of 
despotic government, " When the savages wish to eat fruit they cut 
down a tree and pluck the fruit." 

However difficult it may be to fully appreciate the influence of 
great men upon the cause of civilization, it is impossible to over- 
estimate that of Washington, thus exerted through precept, as well 
as by example. In the general recognition of to-day of the effect 
of that which he did, that which he said, that which he was, upon 
the public conscience, is found the justification of the confident 
claim that popular government under the form prescribed by the 
fundamental law has ceased to be an experiment. Neither foreign 
wars, nor attacks upon either of the coordinate departments, nor 
the irritation of a disputed national election, no rterritorial aggran- 
dizement, nor the addition of realm after realm to the empire of 
States, nor sectional controversies, nor the destruction of a great 
economical, social and political institution, nor the shock of arms 
in internecine conflict, have impaired the structure of the Gov- 
ernment or subverted the orderly rule of the peo])le. 

But the deliverance vouclisafed in time of tribulation is as ear- 
nestly to be sought in time of prosperity, Avhen material acquisi- 
tion may deaden the spiritual sense and impede the progress of 
human elevation. 



ADDRESS. 731 

In the growth of population; in the expansion of commerce, 
manufactures and the useful arts ; in progress in scientific dis- 
covery and invention ; in the accumulation of wealth ; in material 
advancement of every kind, the century has indeed been marvellous. 
Steam, electricity, gas, telegraphy, photography, have multiplied 
the instrumentalities for the exercise of human power. Science, 
philosophy, literature and art have moved forward along the lines 
of prior achievement. But wants have multiplied as civilization 
has advanced, and with multiplied wants and the increased freedom 
of the individual have come the antagonisms inevitably incident to 
inequality of condition, even though there is widely extended 
improvement upon the whole, and often because of it, and added to 
them the more serious discontents arising from the existence, not- 
withstanding the immense results of stimulated production, of 
privation and distress. 

The Declaration asserted political equality and the possession of 
the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, 
and the future of the individual was assumed to be secured in 
securing through government that equality and those rights. 

In spite of the violent overthrow of institutions in the French 
revolution, that great convulsion carried within it the same salutary 
princijiles, while a quickening outburst of spiritual energy marked 
the commencement of the industrial development of England, and 
all Europe glowed with the fires of sympathy with the wretched 
and oppressed. 

Throughout the hundred years thus introduced, aspiration for 
the elevation of humanity has not diminished in intensity, and 
hope of the general attainment of a more exalted plane has gained 
new strength in the effort to remove or mitigate the ills which 
have oppressed mankind. The enhanced valuation of human life, 
the abolition of slavery, the increase of benevolent and charitable 
institutions, the large public appropriations and private benefac- 
tions to the cause of education, the wide diffusion of intelligence, 
perceptible growth in religion, morality and fraternal kindness, 
encourage the effort and give solid ground for the hope. And 
since the protection and regulation of the rights of individuals, as 
between themselves and as between them and the community, 
ultimately come to express the will of the latter, it is not unreason- 
able to contend that the perfectibility of man is bound up in the 
preservation of republican institutions. 

Where the pressure upon the masses has been intense, the drift 
has been towards increased interference by the State in the attempt 



732 APPENDIX. 

to alleviate inequality of condition. So long as that interference 
is enabling and protective only to enable, and individual effort is 
not so circumscribed as to destroy the self-reliance of the people, 
they move onward with accelerated speed in intellectual and moral 
as well as material progress ; but where man allows his beliefs, his 
family, his property, his labor, each of his acts, to be subjected to 
the omnipotence of the state, or is unmindful of the fact that it is 
the duty of the people to support the government and not of the 
government to support the jieople, such a surrender of indepen- 
dence involves the cessation of such progress in its largest sense. 

The statement that popular outbreaks were often as beneficial 
in the political world as storms in the physical was defended upon 
the ground that, although evils, they were productive of good by 
preventing the degeneracy of government and nourishing that 
general attention to public affairs, the absence of which would be 
tantamount to the abdication of self-government. 

But while the rights to life, to use one's faculties in all lawful 
ways, and to acquire and enjoy property, are morally fundamental 
rights antecedent to constitutions, which do not create, but secure 
and protect them, yet it is within the power of the State to pro- 
mote the health, peace, morals, education and good order of the 
people by legislation to that end, and to regulate the use of prop- 
erty in which the public has such an interest as to be entitled to 
assert control. In this wide field of regulation by law, and in the 
reformation of laws which are found to promote inequality, as well 
as in the patient efforts of mutual forbearance which the education 
of conflict produces, the direction of the rule of the people is stead- 
il}' towards an amelioration not to be found in the dead level of des- 
potism, nor in the destruction of society, proposed by the anarchist. 

It is but little more than thirty years since the well-known 
prophecy was uttered, that with the increase of population and the 
taking up of the public lands, our institutions then being really 
put to the test, either some Ca3sar or Napoleon would seize the 
reins of government, or our Republic woidd be plundered and laid 
waste as the Roman Empire had been, but by Huns and Vandals 
engendered within our own country and by our own institutions. 

The brilliant essayist did not comprehend the character of our 
fundamental law, the securities carefully devised to prevent facility 
in changing it, and the provisions which inhibit the subversion of 
individual freedom, the impairment of the obligation of contracts, 
and the confiscation of property, nor realize the practical operation 
of a arovernmental scheme intended to secure that sober second 



ADDKESS. 733 

thought which alone constitutes public opinion in this country, 
and which makes of government by the people a government strong 
enough, in the language of the address, to " withstand the enter- 
prises of faction, to confine each member of the society within the 
limits prescribed by the laws, and to maintain all in the secure and 
tranquil enjoyment of the rightr of person and property," without 
which "liberty is little else than a name." 

Undoubtedly to this people, who from four have become seventy 
millions in the passage of their first century, to reach by the close 
of the second, perhaps, seven hundred millions, with resources 
which can feed and clothe and render happy more than twice that 
number, the solution of grave problems is committed. 

How shall the evils of municipal government, the poverty, the 
vice, engendered by the disproportionate growth of urban popula- 
tions, be dealt with as that growth continues ? How shall immigra- 
tion be regulated so that precious institutions may not be threatened 
by too large an influx of those lacking in assimilative power and 
inclination ? How shall the full measure of duty towards that other 
race, to which in God's providence this country has been so long a 
home, be discharged so that participation in common blessings and 
in the exercise of common rights may lead to and rest upon equal 
education and intelligence ? How shall monopoly be checked, and 
the pressure of accumulation yield to that equitable distribution, 
which shall "undo excess, and each man have enough?" How 
shall the individual be held to the recognition of his responsibility 
for government, and to meet the demand of public obligations ? 
How shall corruption in private and public life be eradicated ? 

These and like questions must be answered, and they will be by 
the nation of "Washington, which in the exercise of the sagacity 
and prudence and self-control born of free institutions, and the 
cultivation of the humanities of Christian civilization will hallow 
the name, American, by making it the synonym of the highest 
sense of duty, the highest morality, the highest patriotism, and 
so become more powerful and more noble than the powerful and 
noble Roman nation, Avhich stood for centuries the embodiment 
of law and order and government, but fell when the gods of the 
fireside fled from hearthstones whose sanctity had been invaded, 
and its citizens lost the sense of duty in indulgence in pleasure. 

And so the new century may be entered upon in the s})irit of 
optimism, the natural result, perhaps, of a self-confidence which has 
lost nothing in substance by experience, though it has gained in 
the moderation of its impetuosity ; yet an optimism essential to 



734 APPENDIX. 

the accomplishment of great ends, not blind to perils, but bold in 
the fearlessness of a faith whose very consciousness of the limi- 
tations of the present asserts the attainability of the untravelled 
world of a still grander future. 

No sliip can sail forever over summer seas. The storms that it 
has weathered test and demonstrate its ability to survive the storms 
to come, but storms there must be until there shall be no more sea. 

But as amid the tempests in which our ship of state was launched, 
and in the times succeeding, so in the times to come, with every 
exigency constellations of illustrious men will rise upon the angry 
skies, to control the whirlwind and dispel the clouds by their 
potent influences, while from the " clear upper sky " the steady 
light of the great planet marks out the course the vessel must 
pursue, and sits shining on the sails as it comes grandly into the 
haven where it would be. 



73 



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